over a
barren tract, until he suddenly came upon a fruitful and well-watered
spot, which he named the Rocky Glen. In this picturesque glen they were
detained for six months, during which time no rain fell. The heat of the
sun was so intense that every screw in their boxes was drawn, and all
horn handles and combs split into fine laminae. The lead dropped from
their pencils, their finger-nails became as brittle as glass, and their
hair, and the wool on their sheep, ceased to grow. Scurvy attacked them
all, and Mr. Poole, the second in command, died. In order to avoid the
scorching rays of the sun, they had excavated an underground chamber, to
which they retired during the heat of the day.

When the long-expected rain fell, they pushed on for fifty miles to
another suitable halting-place, which was called Park Depot. From this
depot Captain Sturt made two attempts to reach the Centre of the
continent. He started, accompanied by four of his party, advancing over a
country which resembled an ocean whose mighty billows, fifty or sixty
feet high, had become suddenly hardened into long parallel ridges of
solid sand. The abrupt termination of this was succeeded at two hundred
miles by what is now so well known as Sturt's Stony Desert, to which
frequent allusion is made by Mr. Stuart in his journals. After thirty
miles more, this stony desert ceased with equal abruptness, and was
followed by a vast plain of dried mud, which Captain Sturt describes as
"a boundless ploughed field, on which floods had settled and subsided."
After advancing two hundred miles beyond the Stony Desert, and to within
one hundred and fifty miles of the Centre of the continent, they were
compelled to return to Park Depot, where they arrived in a most exhausted
condition.

A short rest at the Depot was followed by another expedition, Captain
Sturt being on this occasion accompanied by Mr. Stuart and two men. The
seventh day of their journey brought them to the banks of a fine creek,
now so well known as Cooper Creek in connection with the fate of those
unfortunate explorers, Burke and Wills. At two hundred miles from Cooper
Creek Captain Sturt and his party were again met by the Stony Desert, but
slightly varied in its aspect. Before abandoning his attempt to proceed,
the leader of the expedition laid the matter before his companions, and
he writes as follows: "I should be doing an injustice to Mr. Stuart and
my men, if I did not here mention that I told